Welcome to Power Mondays. Every Monday, learn all about Power BI, Power Query & Power Pivot in full length examples, videos or tips. In this installment, learn how to get top 5 list with a twist.
Let’s say you are analyzing sales data and you want to know who are your top 5 with above average sales persons?
Of course, this is simple, you just create a pivot to see total sales by person and then sort the pivot. First five rows have the answer you need. You can even apply a value filter > top 5 to show only their data.
But what if there is a twist in the story?
You need to show top 5 sales people (by order quantity) with above average orders, like below:
Now things get interesting. We couldn’t create a regular pivot to get this answer. So what next?
Calculating Top 5 with Above Average sales in Power Pivot
We can use Power Pivot to answer such questions elegantly. Read this 3 step tutorial to learn the process.
1. Arrange the data and send it to model
Let’s say your sales data looks like this. First column is the name of sales person and second column is order quantity. Convert your data to a table.
Now insert a pivot from this table. Make sure you enabled the “Add this data to data model” option so we can build measures thru Power Pivot.
2. Create measures to find out “Above average orders”
Go to Pivot table field list and right click on the table name. You will see “Add measure” option. Click on it.
We will create 3 measures.
- Order Count:= COUNTROWS(data)
- Average Order Size := CALCULATE(AVERAGE(data[Orders]), ALL(data))
- Order Count > Avg. Order Size := CALCULATE([Order Count], FILTER(data, data[Orders] > [Average Order Size]))
Let’s understand these measures:
- Order Count: This simply counts the rows in data table. As each row is one order, you get order count.
- Average Order Size: This tells us the average order size for ALL orders ; hence the ALL(data)
- Order Count > Avg. Order Size: This calculates [Order Count] (ie row count) by first filtering orders that are > [Average Order Size]. So we end up counting orders where the order size is more than the total average.
3. Set up the pivot and apply top 5 filter
Now that we calculated all the necessary bits, let’s put this in to action.
- Add sales person to row labels and add Order count > Avg. order size to values area
- Now go to filter on “Sales Person” > Value Filters > Top 10…
- Set up the top 5 value filter as shown below.
You are done. You will get top 5 sales persons by above average order count. Feel free to reverse the top 5 to bottom 5 or calculate some other measures.
Download top 5 with a twist – Example workbook
Click here to download top 5 with a twist example workbook. Examine the measures by going to Data > Manage Data Model or use them in a pivot. Go ahead and create some other measure and test it.
More DAX for you…
If you are learning Power Pivot, check out these examples too:
- How to get percentage of something calculations in Excel Pivot Tables
- Distinct count and blanks with Power Pivot
- Calculating top n, bottom n, others as measures [powerpivotpro]
- And of course, introduction to DAX if you are new.
Thanks to @mjm8686’s tweet which inspired this post.
11 Responses
Ciao Hui,
Collecting Excel tricks under the title “Notable Excel Websites (Non-MVP) Edition” is a brilliant idea…
Thank you in the name of all The FrankensTeam.
On our site there is a box with a picture and text highlighting:
This is a no-MVP site
we think ourselves “bad boys” a bit 🙂
For those who would like to know why our site is a no-MVP site, enough to click on the link:
http://goo.gl/lxDszY
Thank you again!
Thanks a lot
I really enjoyed this (newsletter). I must admit that I rarely read an Excel newsletter (and I subscribe to quite a few) all the way though, but this grabbed my attention and before I realized it, I was engrossed in it. I must also admit that most of this I don’t understand, yet. But, it excites me when I do learn something new in Excel. I can’t wait to see how much of this I can implement into my (constantly-evolving) ‘House Budget’ & ‘Family Medical’ worksheets that I have developed over the past few years! I sure hope to see more of these type of newsletters in the future! Thanks!
Thanks for doing this Hui! I appreciate being included.
I like Tom’s tip a lot. I posted about a tool I wrote to automate this at http://yoursumbuddy.com/tables-edit-query-dialog/
EXCELLENT !
Hui, This post is Superb! More over I have always been a fan of Roberto’s work and have learnt a lot from him.
Here are some of my recent contributions
1. Customising markers in a chart – http://www.goodly.co.in/customize-markers-in-a-chart/
2. Charting Hacks to work faster – http://www.goodly.co.in/5-charting-hacks-to-help-you-work-faster/
3. 7 Date formulas to make life easy – http://www.goodly.co.in/date-formulas-in-excel/
4. Customised scrollbar using VBA – http://www.goodly.co.in/customized-scroll-bar-in-excel/
5. Adding Direct Legends – http://www.goodly.co.in/customized-scroll-bar-in-excel/
Hope everyone enjoys!
I like the Excel Ninja Menus.
1. Select a cell or range then move till the 4-way cross appears. Right-Click and drag the selection to another place in the worksheet then, like a ninja, a menu full of skills and throwing stars pops up allowing me to do all kinds of awesomeness.
2. When you click the fill box on a Date and right click and drag it down, a lot of amazing Date options pop up.
I also brand my Excel to remind myself that I’m awesome. In my personal macro workbook I place the following code.
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Application.Caption = “SuperKrishna’s Awesomeness”
End Sub
My favorite tip goes along with #17. If you try to copy subtotaled data (and in earlier Excel versions filtered data),when you paste it all the data displays instead of just the summarized data.
To get around this, select your summarized data, click on Find and Select tab and then select Go to Special. Click Visible cells Only and click OK. Now paste and you will see that only the summarized data has been copied.
You can also go CTRL+G and then click the Special icon at the bottom of the dialog box.
What a great idea, Chandoo! I’d love to be included in your next edition:) Perhaps a VBA exclusive version?
@Ryan
I will review this concept about 6 months out from the original post and be sure to keep your site in mind
Hui…
That sounds great, Hui:) I just realized I gave credit to Chandoo for the idea and I should have attributed it to you.
Sorry about that!